The destiny of the
ideas of Father Nicholas Afanasiev has not been a simple one. On the
one hand, his
name is well known among Orthodox theologians, the importance of his
works is widely
recognized, and several serious studies of his theology have been
written. The
term “eucharistic ecclesiology,” coined by
Afanasiev, has entered the vocabulary
of theologians and has become so common that any person familiar with
modern
Orthodox theological thought at least slightly is aware of the
existence of
such a trend. On the other hand, one cannot say that
Afanasiev’s ideas have
been enthusiastically welcomed and
accepted by all Orthodox theologians and clergy. Polemics against his
views are
not rare in many Orthodox milieux. Some of his more polemical
critics’
perspectives are what I would like to examine in the present article.

The criticism of Afanasiev
can be conventionally divided into two categories. The first one is the
polemic
of those who wrote special studies on him. Most of the works of this
kind have
been written by Catholics and Protestants trying to assess
Afanasiev’s theological
achievement and the value of his theology for modern Christian thought.
Here, I
do not deal with the criticism found in these works. Although it is
possible and
often necessary to argue with the occasional polemic of those
specialists
against Afanasiev or with their interpretations of his theology, their
careful
understanding and appreciation of his writings cannot be questioned.[1]

Most of the Orthodox
polemic against Afanasiev belongs to the second category: these are
incidental
remarks of the authors who touched the topics connected with
eucharistic ecclesiology
and expressed their opinions of it. And it is exactly this criticism
that is
quite curious: it reveals the critics’ lack of familiarity
with the works and
ideas of Afanasiev and further shows the critics’ prejudices
against eucharistic
ecclesiology.

2

An example of the criticism testifying to an
extremely vague idea of Afanasiev’s theology is found in
Andrew Sopko’s book on
Romanides.[2]
Sopko
states that Romanides “in his early study of Ignatius of
Antioch, which was
actually done for Afanasiev at St. Sergius Institute in Paris, leaned
toward a eucharistic
ecclesiology, but soon found it unconvincing. According to Romanides,
it left
much unsaid about the Church’s life.”[3]
Leaving
aside the ecclesiology to which Romanides turned in his early years,
one should
notice that in his eucharistic
ecclesiology Afanasiev does not try to say everything about the life of
the
Church but concentrates on some important issues.

Making an attempt to evaluate
Afanasiev’s eucharistic ecclesiology from the point of view
Romanides (this is
how the task is formulated), Sopko presents a set of erroneous ideas
about Afanasiev’s
work. It appears
from Sopko analysis
that Afanasiev reduces the entire life of the Church to the eucharistic
assembly and, having reduced and fragmented ecclesial life, prefers one
ecclesiastical
activity to others.[4]
This characterization of Afanasiev’s
ecclesiology is completely inadequate and not based on his writings.
The main
problem seems to be the name “eucharistic
ecclesiology.” Somehow influenced by
the name, Sopko concludes that Afanasiev reduces the variety of
ecclesiastical reality
to the Eucharist and liturgy. Contrary to Sopko’s allegation,
Afanasiev’s
writings are devoted not to the Eucharist in itself (although the
latter plays
an extremely important role in his theology), but to the Church in all
aspects
of its life. In Afanasiev’s point of view, the Church with all its manifestations and all its realities
– not only the liturgy
– is the eucharistic assembly. And, vice versa, the
eucharistic assembly is the
Church. For Afanasiev, the Church is fully revealed in any eucharistic
community. The Eucharist is the origin of the Church, determining
ecclesiastical structure and order but not limiting the variety of
ecclesiastical phenomena to the liturgy. That is why it makes no sense
to speak
about reducing the Church to the eucharistic assembly: this latter is
not less
then the Church but is the Church itself together with all its
manifestations.
The two are the same. In other words, Afanasiev does not reduce the
Church to
the Eucharist but extends the eucharistic assembly to the scale of the
Church,
and this assembly includes all the elements of ecclesiastical life that
are
compatible with the assembly’s basic principles and structure.

An exhaustive answer to
Sopko’s reproach of reducing the Church to something lesser
was given by Alexander
Schmeman forty years ago. Emphasizing the fact that the words
“eucharistic ecclesiology”
sound misleading for some people, he writes: “This term is
unhappy because
those who were brought up in the concepts of the old scholastic
ecclesiology
perceive it as the reduction of the life of the Church to the Eucharist
and as
the narrowing of this life to liturgy alone. In reality it means, of
course,
exactly the opposite. points
to the
gracious source and nature of everything
in the Church, not only of sacraments.”[5]
The
phenomena other than the Eucharist are not denied or ignored by
Afanasiev. If
they do not contradict the essence of the Church, the theology of Fr
Nicholas
demeans them in no way.

Sopko’s claim that eucharistic
ecclesiology “inadvertently underemphasizes the charismatic
character of the
Church through a form of hyper-sacramentalism” should be
rejected too.[6]
(It
is true Sopko immediately makes qualifications, writing that it happens
contrary
to the intentions of Afanasiev.) I will not dwell on the issue of what
this
hyper-sacramentalism might be, how it could be characteristic of
Afanasiev and
in what way it is accompanied in his works by the underestimation of
the
charismatic nature of the Church, although all these points are
absolutely
unclear in Sopko’s account. Sopko’s comment is
surprising since there have been
very few in modern
Orthodox theology who
have stressed the charismatic nature of everything in the Church so
assertively
and consistently as Afanasiev. As is well known, emphasizing that
everything in
the Church is done by grace, Afanasiev – following Rudolph
Sohm – does not
hesitate to reject law as a genuine principle of ecclesiastical
organization. In
particular, he writes: “The Church is the place where the
Spirit acts, and the
Spirit is the principle of its life and activity. The Church lives and
acts by
the Spirit through the charismatic gifts which God distributes in the
Church as
He wills. Grace is ‘the only mover’ of all that
happens within the Church. The
tradition of the Church has its origin in the Spirit, not in any human
actions.
[…] Consequently, the organizing principle in the Church is
the Spirit which
excludes any other principle since the latter would be external to the
Church.”[7]
Similar quotes from the works of Fr Nicholas can be multiplied. How
does Sopko manage
to interpret such a definite assertion of guiding the Church by the
Spirit
through the grace as “inadvertent underemphasizing of the
charismatic character
of the Church”?

Unfortunately, Sopko
demonstrates no direct knowledge of the works of Afanasiev. As his
references
reveal, the only written source of his information is
Nichols’ book.[8]
Despite this, and with no direct citation of the texts, Sopko
nevertheless does
not hesitate to criticize Afanasiev. Even from Nichols’
study, however, it is evident that “eucharistic
ecclesiology” is not just a teaching on the Eucharist and
liturgy but much
more.[9]
In
fact, Sopko neglects or misstates even Nichols’ examination
of Afanasiev. As
soon as the term “eucharistic ecclesiology” is
mentioned stereotypes start
working in his mind and he readily follows them. Sopko’s
judgment thus is based
not on Afanasiev’s actual writing but rather on common myths
about eucharistic
ecclesiology. Being unfamiliar with the latter, Sopko apparently
creates
arbitrary constructions of Fr Nicholas’ ideas. I believe one
should expect more
responsibility from a theologian writing on so crucially important
topic.

3

The author who has made polemical comments on
the eucharistic ecclesiology of Afanasiev more often than others is
John
Zizioulas, now Metropolitan of Pergamos, the Patriarchate of
Constantinople. I
would like to trace Zizioulas’ polemic as appears in his two
books, Eucharist, Bishop, Church
and Being
as
Communion.[10]

In the monograph Eucharist,
Bishop, Church,which waspublished in English in 2001but
whose Greek original appeared in 1965, Zizioulas recognizes
“a positive
element” of the eucharistic ecclesiology of Afanasiev and
Schmemann.[11]
Zizioulas
accepts that he is not familiar with the works of Afanasiev and
Schmemann in
Russian and draws his conclusions about eucharistic ecclesiology only
on the
basis of their articles in French and English: he gives the list of
these writings,
including five articles of Afanasiev (of which the most important are The Church Which Presides in Love and Una Sancta) and four of Schmemann.[12]

Precisely in his first
critical remark on the eucharistic ecclesiology of Afanasiev and
Schmemann, Zizioulas’
claims that this theory arrived at “complete and exclusive
identification of
the notions of the Church and Eucharist.”[13]
Although
in both Afanasiev and Schmemann a close relation between the Eucharist
and the
Church is an extremely important point indeed, one have to ask in which
of
their works they identify these two notions completely
and exclusively. It is hardly surprising that Metropolitan
John indicates
not onepassage of
this sort. The
correlation between the two concepts in Afanasiev and Schmemann is more
complicated and cannot be described in such a simplified manner as
Zizioulas
does.

Recognizing that the emphasis
of eucharistic ecclesiology on “the ecclesiological character
of the Eucharist
and also of the eucharistic character of the Church is an important
positive
element,” Zizioulas urges us “to beware of the
lurking danger of one-sidedness
which can be damaging to
historical research. […] The notion of the Church and her
unity is not
expressed to the full in a eucharistic unity which
lacks any preconditions. The Church has always felt herself
to be united in faith, love, baptism,
holiness of life, etc.” That is why, according to
Zizioulas, “the Eucharist
cannot be studied as a closed object, apart from the content of Church
life as
a whole.” If for methodological reasons we study the
Eucharist separately, we
should be aware of restricting ourselves only to one part of an
extensive
issue. “In this way, we shall avoid the danger of
one-sidedness inherent in the
recognition, correct in principle, of the ecclesiological character of
the Eucharist.”[14]

In the passage which I
have tried to sum up the previous paragraph, Zizioulas criticizes
eucharistic
ecclesiology indirectly. It appears as something that reminds him of
the danger
of the one-sidedness which he would like to avoid. In this way, he
suggests cautiously
that eucharistic ecclesiology evokes all the problems he has listed:
one-sidedness,
the expression of the Church and its unity in the Eucharist without any
preconditions, and the study of the Eucharist separately from the life
of the
Church. However, are any of these problems indeed characteristic of
eucharistic
ecclesiology? As regards the alleged
“one-sidedness” of Afanasiev (the same pertains
to Schmemann’s “one-sidedness” too),
enough has been saidin
the previous section of the present
article. This allegation is based on mistaking eucharistic ecclesiology
for a
sort of liturgics. Itisthe same misunderstanding that
underlies Zizioulas’ call not to study the Eucharist
separately from the whole
of the Church’s life. As I have pointed out above, the final
object of Afanasiev’s
reflection is not the details of the liturgy and rite but the Church
viewed in
the light of the Eucharist and determined in its structure by the
Eucharist.Neither Afanasiev nor
Schemmann intend,
for methodological or any other reasons, to study the Eucharist as
“a closed
object.” For them, the Eucharist and the eucharistic assembly
is rather a prism
through which everything in the
Church should be seen. Finally, if Metropolitan John really attributes
to Afanasiev
and Schmemann the idea that “the notion of the Church and her
unity is
expressed to the full in a eucharistic unity which
lacks any preconditions,” one should ask again in
which of
their works such an opinion is formulated or at least implied. Only if
this or
similar formula really existed in Afanasiev or Schmemann, it would be
worth
discussing. Thus, upon closer examination Zizioulas’ quite
superfluously
associates his warnings, most of which are intelligible in themselves,
with the
eucharistic ecclesiology of Afanasiev.

Another critical
comment of Zizioulas deals with the “canonical
unity” of the Church. In his
words, “emphasized to the extreme […], the axiom
‘where the Eucharist is, there
is the Church’ […] destroys in the final analysis
any notion of canonical unity in
the Church leading in
essence to the antithesis introduced by Rudolph Sohm between religion
and law. It
is perhaps not fortuitous that N. Afanassieff, who was chiefly
responsible of introducing
the so-called ‘eucharistic ecclesiology’, stresses
that only love and not
canons of law and rights can have a place in the unity of the
Church.”[15]
He
continues: “Such an absolute view of the eucharistic
character of the Church to
the exclusion of canonical preconditions leads Fr A. Schmemann, too, to
the
view that we have ecclesiological fullness even in the parish, inasmuch
as the Eucharist
is celebrated there, which conflicts with the conclusions of this study
in
which the eucharistic element is interwoven with the canonical, which
is to
say, the Eucharist with the Bishop.”[16]
Zizioulas
emphasizes that “the parish can on no account be regarded as
a complete Church
even though Eucharist is celebrated in it.”[17]

In these lines,
Zizioulas reveals a very important difference of opinions with
Afanasiev. The formula
“where the Eucharist is, there is the Church” was
coined by Afanasiev in his
article, “Una Sancta,” giving a brief account of
his basic ideas applied to the
issue of the unity of the Church.[18]
Similar
to any formula it is schematic.
Did Afanasiev
emphasize this principle to the extreme as Zizioulas claims? I do not
think so. Within the ecclesiology
of Afanasiev,
this formula is appropriate. It is an essential part of
Afanasiev’s vision of
the Church, and there is a solid research into the history of the EarlyChurch behind this formula. From the point of view of
Metropolitan John, who
is seeking for a compromise between the bonds of love and canon law, it
may
sound as an extreme. Finally, this all depends on whose ecclesiology
manifests
God’s design for the Church better.

The formula “where the Eucharist
is, there is the Church” implies that the main factor of the
unity of the
Church is to be sought for in the Eucharist, not in canon law. The
significance
of canon law in the Church is undermined not only by this formula but
by the
whole of the works which Afanasiev wrote in his mature years. Contrary
to the
majority of modern Orthodox and Catholic theologians, Afanasiev
accepted Sohm’s
opinion that the law is alien to the nature of the Church.[19]
Afanasiev
supported Sohm’s point of view explicitly and with arguments.
One can best read
it in his hymn of the power of love opposed to the power of law in The Church of the Holy Spirit, chapter 8.[20]Sohm’s thesis,
as Afanasiev’s theology
testifies, is destined to be a recurrent issue in Christian theology
since it is
well rooted in the New Testament and the history of the early Church.
The
proximity of Afanasiev to Sohm at this particular point does not
discredit him.
The rejection of ecclesiastical law as an indispensable element of the
Church inevitably
destroys “the notion of canonical unity” but, which
is most important, does not
destroy the very idea of the unity of the Church. Since a real unity is
– to use
again a formula of Schmemann – that “from
above,” while the legal unity tends
to degenerate into that “from below.”[21]

The polemic of
Zizioulas against Schmemann is based on an inexplicable misreading. In
the
article to which Zizioulas refers, Schmemann states that many features
of an
ancient eucharistic community with a bishop at its head can be found in
a modern
parish, while a modern priest has many functions of an ancient bishop.
However,
he absolutely unequivocally points to the limited nature of catholicity
of the
parish and insist that it is exactly the bishop’s diocese
which allows separate
parishes to overcome the limits and that only this diocese is a full
catholic
church.[22]
Thus,
in the article Zizioulas refers to, Schmemann writes quite the opposite
of what
Zizioulas attributes to him! One must note that Schmemann follows the
same line
of thought in his later major work, his testament, Evkharistiia
(“The Eucharist”).[23]
By this,
Schmemann responds to Afanasiev’s call for a theological
discussion of the
correlation between the parish and the bishop’s diocese in
modern situation and
makes his choice in favor of one of the two options outlined by
Afanasiev.[24]
Later, Zizioulas himself wrote an essay on this topic and developed
basically the
same idea as Schmemann, namely the idea of the primary nature of the
bishop’s
diocese over the parish.[25]
That
is to say, there is no essential disagreement between Zizioulas and
Schmemann
at this point and criticism addressed by the former to the latter is
completely
pointless.

4

In Eucharist,
Bishop, Church, Zizioulas is still very cautious in
criticizing Afanasiev. He
returns to the
criticism of Afanasiev in
his later theological work, Being as
Communion, and here he takes a more definite tone. Zizioulas
writes that
“through the pages of this volume the reader will easily
recognize the
fundamental presuppositions of ‘eucharistic
ecclesiology’.” However, he points
out immediately that in his book one can also find important
differences from Afanasiev’s
eucharistic ecclesiologyand
that the
author of the book “wishes to go further than Afanasiev or to
dissociate his
own opinions from the latter, without underestimating or minimizing the
importance of this Russian theologian and those who have faithfully
followed
him.”[26]

Zizioulas states that many
Western Christians as well as the Orthodox believe that Orthodox
ecclesiology
is only a projection of the mystery of the Church into sacramental
categories: “a
sacramentalization of theology.” He considers such an
impression to be
“inevitable if we do not go beyond what eucharistic
ecclesiology has said until
now, if we do not try to widen our theological and philosophical
horizons.
Furthermore, eucharistic ecclesiology such as has been developed by Afanasiev and his followers
raises serious
problems, and because of this it is in need of fundamental correction.
The
principle “wherever the Eucharist is, there is the
Church,” on which this
ecclesiology is built, tends to lead towards two basic errors that
Afanasiev
did not avoid, any more than those who have faithfully followed him.
The first
of these errors consists in considering even the parish where the
Eucharist
takes place as a complete and “catholic” Church.
Several other Orthodox
theologians, following Afanasiev, have come to this conclusion without
recognizing that they are raising in a very acute manner the entire
problem of
the structure of the Church.

In primitive
Christianity, a local church consisted only of one parish-community,
Zizioulas
continues, but a modern parish does not meet all the criteria of
catholicity
and, consequently, is not a complete and catholic church: it does not
include
all the faithful of a place and all the presbyterium with the bishop at
its
head. Zizioulas asks if the principle “wherever the Eucharist
is, there is the
Church” is weakened by this fact. Not necessarily, he
answers, but it has to be
reinterpreted in order to express the correct relation between the
parish and
the diocese and the Eucharist and the Church.[27]

Let us examine some of
Zizioulas’ allegations. First of all, who are those Western
Christians and
Orthodox that, influenced by eucharistic ecclesiology, perceive
Orthodox
ecclesiology as “a sacramentalization of theology?”
Zizioulas indicates no
instances of such a perception, and this leaves some doubt if the
problem is
real. Then, is the impression of eucharistic ecclesiology as the
“sacramentalization of theology” so inevitable as
Zizioulas claims it to be? Both
Afanasiev and Schmemann build their ecclesiology not on sacraments in
general
but on the Eucharist, which they perceive not as just one of many
sacraments
but as a unique and fundamental phenomenon of the Church’s
life. Upon the
attentive reading of Afanasiev and Schmemann, the perception of
eucharistic
ecclesiology as “a sacramentalization of theology”
cannot even emerge. Such a
misinterpretation testifies to a drastic lack of understanding of what
eucharistic
ecclesiology is. It is not accidental that here Zizioulas limits
himself to general
criticism, not dwelling on details and not analyzing the texts of those
whom he
criticizes. Finally, it is more that doubtful whether Afanasiev ever
considered
a modern parish to be a catholic church. Zizioulas, again, fails to
refer to
such a place in Afanasiev’s writings. As has been mentioned,
in the Lord’s Supper,
written in 1952, Afanasiev
raises the issue of the correlation between the two ecclesiastical
districts (parish
and bishop’s diocese) as a theological problem and proposes
to discuss it. He
admits that “the modern parish resembles the primitive local
church most” but
does not give preference to any of the two possible solutions he
offers. In his
other work, Vstuplenie v Tzerkov’
(“Entering the Church”), published in the same year
1952, he states explicitly
that neither the modern diocese nor parish express the fullness, that
is,
catholicity, of the Church of God.[28]
Or,
probably, Zizioulas’ reproach of identifying a parish with a
catholic church refers
only to the followers of Afanasiev? Who are these people, then? If
Zizioulas
means Schmemann, whom he criticizes for the same mistake in Eucharist, Bishop, Church, Schmemann,
as I have demonstrated above,
does
not identify the parish with the catholic church: contrary to what
Zizioulas
states, Schmemann believes such a church to be a bishop’s
diocese, and at this
point he is in agreement with Zizioulas himself! Thus, there no trace
of the
simple identification of the local church and the parish either in
Afanasiev or
in Schmemann. Whom does Zizioulas blame for this error?And who are the anonymous followers of Afanasiev
he is attacking?

Zizioulas considers the
second great problem of Afanasiev’s eucharistic ecclesiology
to be the
relationship between the local and universal church. According to him,
“the
principle of ‘wherever the Eucharist is, there is the
Church’ risks suggesting
the idea that each Church could, independently of other local Churches,
be the ‘one,
holy, catholic and apostolic Church’.”
“Several Orthodox theologians faithful
to the doctrine of eucharistic ecclesiology – Afanasiev had
already given such
an interpretation – have a […] tendency to give
priority to the local Church.”
Metropolitan John calls for creative theological work and a solution
“which
would justify eucharistic ecclesiology without carrying with it the
risk of
localism.” He believes that it is the Eucharist that guides
us in this since by
its nature it transcends both localism and universalism.[29]

In another place in his
book, Zizioulas raises this issue once more. The line which his thought
follows
here is quite contorted. Since Afanasiev, he writes, the idea that
there is no
priority of the universal Church over the local has become current in
Orthodox
theology. However, neither Afanasiev nor many other Orthodox
theologians see a
danger in this idea.“It
is often too
easily assumed that eucharistic ecclesiology leads to the priority of
the local
Church over universal, to a kind of congregationalism. [Here Zizioulas
makes a
cross-reference to another place of his book, in this latter place
referring,
in turn, to the works of Alivizatos and Florovsky].[30]
But
as I have tried to argue in another study of mine [at this point
Zizioulas
refers to the next chapter of Being as
Communion], Afanasiev was wrong in drawing such conclusions
because the
nature of the Eucharist points not in the direction of the priority of
the
local Church but in that of the simultaneity of both local and
universal.”[31]

Zizioulas is quite
unclear in both of the places discussed above. In the first one, he
claims that
eucharistic ecclesiology is fraught with the risk of localism and has
the
tendency of giving priority to the local Church. But, if it is just the
risk
and tendency, what does the clause “Afanasiev had already
given such an
interpretation” mean? What kind of interpretation has
Afanasiev given? In the
second passage, Zizioulas starts with the allegation that Afanasiev
does not
recognize the primacy of the universal
over the local. Then, he vaguely claims that “it is
often too easily assumed”
(by whom? by Alivizatos and Florovsky to whom Zizioulas refers
indirectly?)
that the eucharistic ecclesiology leads to the
primacy of the local over the universal. Finally, making a
jump in his
logic, Zizioulas claims that Afanasiev “was wrong in drawing
such conclusions.”
Again, what does this “such” mean? What conclusions
has Afanasiev drawn? In
which of his works does Afanasiev argue for the primacy
of the local church over the universal one? It is evident
that his rejection of the primacy of the universal over the local does
not automatically
mean the recognition of the primacy of the local over the universal.
What does Afanasiev
write on the correlation of the local and universal after all? After
careful
reading of the two polemical passages of Zizioulas, it is impossible to
take away
clear answers to all these questions. Instead of intelligible analysis
of real
ideas taken from Afanasiev’s writings, Zizioulas makes an
attempt – confused
and unsupported with any references – to credit Afanasiev
with conclusions he
never made.

Afanasiev’s views cannot
be criticized through the opposition of the local and universal church
in the
way Zizioulas tries to do. According to Afanasiev, “the whole
Church of God resided, lived and was revealed in all
fullness of its unity and in all unity of its fullness in each local
church.”[32]Such an attitude
does not exclude the “simultaneity
of both local and universal” on which Zizioulas insists but
implies it! Also, Afanasiev
would be happy to accept Zizioulas’ statement that the nature
of the Eucharist
transcends the localism and universalism. What is the matter of
Zizioulas’
polemic, then, if at this point he, actually, is in agreement with
Afanasiev?
Zizioulas criticizes not the real Afanasiev but an imaginary scholar.
Who,
again, are those mysterious “several Orthodox theologians
faithful to the
doctrine of eucharistic ecclesiology” whom Zizioulas
repeatedly reproaches for
making Afanasiev’s conclusions too extreme?

Zizioulas
makes one more critical comment related
to the issue of the local and universal. He argues that in his
eucharistic
ecclesiology Afanasiev has failed to see and appreciate the fundamental
fact
that the presence of the two or three neighboring bishops during the
ordination
of a bishop in a local church links this bishop and this local
community with
the eucharistic communities all over the world. He makes the claim that
one may
conclude this from the views of Afanasiev as expressed in his Una Sancta “and
elsewhere”[33]
(I
cannot refrain from the question “where exactly?”).
Presumably, Zizioulas
suggests that Afanasiev considers separate eucharistic assemblies to be
segregated or, at least, not bound closely enough. It is true that in Una Sancta Afanasiev does not mention
the presence of neighboring bishops in the ordination of a local
bishop. However,
it is in the same Una Sancta that
Afanasiev
develops the idea of the unity of local churches through the unity of
their
inner nature, through their communion in love and through the reception
of what
have happened in each one by others.[34]
Zizioulas
ignores this completely. The presence of neighboring bishops in the
ordination
is one of the elements of Afanasiev’s concept of reception.
In The Church of the Holy Spirit,
Afanasiev
writes about the ordination as follows:

The
acknowledgement of an ordination happening
in the Church is a catholic act: performed by the local church that
ordains, it
takes place not only in that church alone but in the Church of God. That is why the acknowledgement by the local
church is accompanied by reception by the other churches. Every local
church as
being a Church of God appropriates everything that takes place in the
other churches as its own action. Thus, every church, at least in
principle, bears
witness to the fact that theordination
conformed to the will of God. Cyprian of Carthage tells that the
ordination of Corneliusof Rome was
received by the bishops of
the whole world. In Cyprian’s language, this means that the
ordination was
received or witnessed to by all the churches.”[35]

In other words, Afanasiev’s
idea of reception involves the presence of neighboring bishops in an
ordination
of a local bishop. For Nichols, for example, this is evident: he
emphasizes
specially that for Afanasiev the presence of the presidents of other
local
churches in an ordination is important.[36]
Thus,
at this point Nichols interprets Afanasiev in a way opposite to that of
Zizioulas, and – of course – it is Nichols who is
right. Once again, Zizioulas’
criticism falls apart when one goes to Afanasiev’s actual
texts.

5

Zizioulas objects to several more ideas of
Afanasiev.
First, he disagrees with depicting Cyprian of Carthage as the father of
the “universalist
ecclesiology.”[37]
The opposition between
the origins of the universalist ecclesiology in Cyprian and of the
eucharistic one
in Ignatius of Antioch is one of the most often criticized points in
Afanasiev.
It may be that the opposition is made too sharply by Afanasiev. The
issue,
however, requires further detailed research, which is beyond the scope
of the
present article. In addition, even if Afanasiev went too far in
contrasting the
two ecclesiologies, it does not affect the basics of the eucharistic
one.

Second, Zizioulas
questions the following vision of apostolic succession, attributing
such a
vision to Afanasiev: “N. Afanasiev, in spite of
[is this “in spite of” appropriate here?] his
eucharistic ecclesiology, failed
to appreciate the indivisibility of the apostolic college in succession
and put
forth the view which is incompatible with the eschatological image of
the
Church that ‘the bishop through his church is the successor
of one apostle, not
of apostles in general’.”[38]
It
appears from the words of Zizioulas that the idea of the
bishop’s succession
from an individual apostle was the personal theological conclusion of
Afanasiev
which he propagated. In fact, in his essay “The Teaching on
Collegiality” (originally
a paper read in March 1965 in the Saint Sergius Institute in Paris),
which
seems to be the Russian version of the French article Zizioulas quotes,
Afanasiev
just recognizes that the succession of the bishop to one concrete
apostle, not
apostles in general, was the most usual form of the theory of apostolic
succession in history.[39]
At
the same time, he emphasizes first that in general “the
doctrine of apostolic
succession is quite indefinite” and second that this
predominant understanding of
apostolic succession faces some historical difficulties. Thus,
Afanasiev does
not demonstrate special personal sympathy to the idea of the succession
to an
individual apostle but accepts that this has been the predominant
vision of the
Church. It also must be noted that the book of Francis Dvornik,
referred by
Zizioulas to support his opinion that a bishop succeeds the whole of
the
college of apostles, includes no evidence in favor of such a
hypothesis. On the
contrary, it provides the data testifying that in many local churches
there was
a firm tradition of tracing the chain of local bishops back to one
concrete
apostle.[40]

Finally, discussing the
problems of ministry and arguing that “the very question of
whether ordination
is to be understood in ‘ontological’ or
‘functional’ terms is not only
misleading but absolutely impossible to raise,” Zizioulas
John places Afanasiev
among those who speak of ordination as “functional.”[41]
It
is correct in the sense that Afanasiev considers the difference between
ecclesiastical ministries as functional.[42]
I
will not dwell on the problem of whether discourse about
“functional” versus
“ontological”
is possible or not, but in Afanasiev these terms are used quite
adequately.

6

If in Eucharist,
Bishop, Church (the Greek original of which was published, as
I have
already mentioned, in 1965) Zizioulas’ criticism of Afanasiev
is still moderate,
in Being as Communion (which first
appeared in 1985) it is articulated much more boldly. In both books,
however, my
contention is that Zizioulas’ criticism is mostly pointless.
Zizioulas persists
in distorting the ideas of Afanasiev or credits him with the opinions
the
latter never held. The review of Zizioulas’ criticism,
undertaken in the
present article, reveals his amazingly fragmentary and scarce knowledge
of the
writings of Afanasiev. In Eucharist,
Bishop, Church he mentions, as has been said, five of
Afanasiev’s articles.
Two of these, “Una Sancta” and “The
Church Which Presides in Love,” can be
called programmatic works but none of them gives whatsoever full
exposition of Afanasiev’s
ecclesiology. In addition, Zizioulas’ references to these
articles leave doubts
that he has read them in full and attentively. In Being
as Communion, Zizioulas refers to three articles of
Afanasiev,
of which one (“Una Sancta”) is the same as in the Eucharist, Bishop, Church. In both of his
books, Zizoulas does not
demonstrate familiarity whatsoever with either of Afanasiev’s
two major works, The Lord’s Supper
and The Church of Saint Spirit. It
is true
that in Being as Communion
Zizioulas
refers to page 3 of the Russian text of The
Lord’s Supper, but his acquaintance with this work
does not seem to go
beyond this page.[43]
It
is important to say it once more and emphatically: Zizioulas is very
poorly informed
about Afanasiev’s eucharistic ecclesiology. His familiarity
with the writings
of Schmemann, whom he often (correctly!) places in company of
Afanasiev, is not
evident either. All these do not prevent him from repeatedly
criticizing “Afanasiev
and his followers.” Alas, the criticism of Zizioulas is based
rather on
caricatures and rumors about the eucharistic ecclesiology of Afanasiev
and
Schmemann, not on their works. Such a lack of satisfactory knowledge of
their
writings leads Zizioulas to misinterpretations and distortions.

This, however, is not
the most surprising fact in the reception of eucharistic ecclesiology.
It is even
more surprising that in modern Orthodox theology Zizioulas is
considered to be the
onewho has made
the most important
correctives to the ideas of Afanasiev. It is exactly as those
correctives that Metropolitan
Kallistos Ware recommends Being as
Communion.[44]
This point of view is
shared by John Erickson who writes that, “once identified
chiefly with the late
Fr Afanasieff and émigré Russian theologians,
‘eucharistic ecclesiology’ has
been given both balance and scholarly precision quite independently by
[…] John
Zizioulas.”[45]
Ware and Erickson are
joined by Sopko who repeats that recently the ideas of Afanasiev have
been
“emended” by Zizioulas.[46]
Here,
I would not like to discuss Erickson’s note that Zizioulas
has contributed “balance
and scholarly precision” to the eucharistic ecclesiology of
Afanasiev and
others although, in my opinion, it is far from being accurate.
Nevertheless, I
have to agree with Erickson that Zizioulas worked “quite
independently.” In
this case, however, it is not a reason for praise. Some reasonable
dependence on
and recognition of one’s predecessors, at the very least in
the form of better acquaintance
with their writings, is to be expected. The statements that Zizoulas
“corrected,” “emended,”
“balanced” etc. the eucharistic ecclesiology of
Afanasiev
are not based on any real comparison of their works. Perhapsthe scholars making these statements
give superfluous trust to Zizioulas’ declaration of his wish
to go beyond Afanasiev,
but, as I have tried to demonstrate above, Zizioulas attempted to
accomplish
his aim without reading Afanasiev properly. Have those who support
Zizioulas
similarly neglected careful examination of Afanasiev’s texts?

There is one more
interesting detail of Zizioulas’ attitude towards the ideas
of Afanasiev. As Afanasiev’s
works were written mostly in Russian, up until more recently this
linguistic barrier
has played some role in Zizioulas’ poor acquaintance with the
former’s writings.
The problem, however, is not limited just to a linguistic barrier. Being as Communion, containing most of
the critical comments of Zizioulas, was printed for the first time in
1985. TheChurch
of the Holy Spirit was published in Russian in 1971, and in
1975 its French
translation appeared.[47]
Thus, before the publication of his book Zizioulas had enough time to
familiarize himself – at least in French – with the
most significant work of
the scholar whom he criticizes and whom he would like to surpass.
Nevertheless,
compared to Eucharist, Bishop, Church written
in the first half of the 1960s, in Being
as Communion one finds no signs at all of
Zizoulas’s greater familiarity
with the ideas of Afanasiev (despite the more extensive criticism of
Afanasiev
in the later book). Is it a lack of interest towards the theology of
Afanasiev
(and Schmemann, I have to add)? Or is it satisfaction with that
folkloric image
of Afanasiev’s ecclesiology that Zizioulas created for
himself in the 1960s?

7

In this article, I have not attempted to answer
to all critics of Afanasiev[48]
but just
to draw attention to the fact that the major part of their criticism
deals with
imagined, not real Afanasiev. A striking discrepancy between the actual
statements of Afanasiev and allegations of his critics has been already
observed
by Michael Plekon. As he points out, Afanasiev “is sometimes
unjustifiably
accused of exaggerations or deficiencies of which he is not
guilty,” and “upon
closer view it becomes clear that Afanasiev does not hold the positions
for
which he is most often attacked.”[49]
Plekon
wonders why the attitude towards Afanasiev’s basic vision has
been so
neuralgic.[50]
Absolutely in line with
Plekon’s observations, in the criticism which has been
discussed above, one can
discover not the polemic based on the texts of Afanasiev –
such a criticism
should be welcomed – but seemingly causeless resistance
accompanied by the
evident lack of knowledge of his works.

One may guess at the
reasons of this resistance. In the works of Afanasiev, we encounter
many
realities and problems to which we are not accustomed in our daily
ecclesiastical
life. Besides, in his works we do not find most of those ready
solutions which “scholastic
theology” offers as indisputable. While we are longing for Byzantium and its cultural and ideological heritage,
Afanasiev
explores the heritage of the early Church. For all these reasons, he is
somewhat unusual and difficult. Quite a typical reaction to Afanasiev
is
described by Archimandrite Zinon Teodor, a contemporary Russian
icon-painter:
“About eight years ago, […] I was given the book
by Fr Nicholas Afanasiev, The Church of the
Holy Spirit. I looked
it through and put it aside, thinking that it is not for me. Now, I
cannot
image my work without it. Each needs to raise his questions by
himself.”[51]

Not everybody is ready to
accept the challenge of Afanasiev and
to ascend to the
level of the problems he discusses. As his ideas are in complete
disagreement with
the widespread attempts to build a stylized Church, for some people his
conclusions generate nervousness. His thought deprives some of us of
the
ecclesiastical comfort and security we have obtained, probably at great
cost.
His works powerfully shake views about the structure and daily life of
the
Church which have been dominant in the Orthodox churches (in fact, not
only in
the Orthodox churches) for centuries. Probably it is this profound
psychological
anxiety that can explain why there are Orthodox theologians who so
easily criticize
the scholar of whose ideas they have quite a vague idea, why they so
willingly caricature
and “correct” his thinking and so inexplicably
attribute him the opinions he
never held.

Afanasiev, however, was
not naïve. He was aware that in the current situation the
involvement of law in
the life of the Church is inevitable, which does not mean that law is
inherent,
absolutely necessary for the Church. He does not suggest replacing the
Byzantine, Muscovite or Imperial Russian “reductions of the
Church” – to use a
favorite term of Schmemann – with an artificially
re-constructed “reduction”
from the “early Church.” Similarly, he is far from
nihilism with regard to the
periods of ecclesiastical history following the early Church:
“We cannot return
to the time of early Christianity, not only because of radically
changed
historical conditions but also because the experience of the Holy
Spirit’s
guidance of the Church, accumulated through the passage of time, could
not be
laid aside.”[52]
Afanasiev never claimed
to have answers to all questions. His works, although always related to
contemporaneous theological agenda, are not ecclesiastical to-do lists
but
studies inviting further research, reflection and discussion. His major
writings, above all The Lord’s
Supper
and The Church of the Holy Spirit,
are creative attempts at responding to the crisis of contemporary
Christianity,
attempts to keep the Church from further erosion.

As time passes, it
becomes clear to what a great extent Afanasiev was far ahead of his own
period.
Alexander Schmemann, a student of Afanasiev and a theologian sharing
some of
his basic intuitions, was one of the few who were fully aware of
Afanasiev’s crucial
importance for modern Orthodox theology. He wrote that Afanasiev,
“when his
message is understood and deciphered, will remain for future
generations a
genuine renovator of ecclesiology.”[53]
“When
the time to sum up comes, when history ranks everybody in accordance
with their
real value, it will turn out that the lines he wrote and the paths he
explored will
be more important and significant than many of those writings that once
struck
us and preoccupied our minds. In the final account, his not lengthy,
always
irreproachably constructed, although seemingly a bit dry essays
[Schmemann was
writing these lines before the posthumous publication of the book The Church of the Holy Spirit] will have
greater weight than multitude of other volumes.”[54]
The
time to sum up came long ago, and we should further explore the ways
Afanasiev
and Schmemann discovered and proceeded.

Sobornost, vol. 31.2 (2009).

* This article is a revised version of the
Russian original published in Vestnik
russkogo khristianskogo dvizheniia 192 (2007). I am very
thankful to Fr
Michael Plekon for editing my English text.

[1] The two studies in English are representative
of the works of this category: Aidan Nichols, OP, Theology
in the Russian Diaspora: Church, Fathers, Eucharist in Nikolai
Afanas’ev (1893–1966). Cambridge
University Press, 1989; and Joseph
Aryankalayil, Local Church and Church
Universal: Towards a Convergence between East and West: A Study on the
Theology
of the Local Church according to N. Afanasiev and J. M. R. Tillard with
Special
Reference to Some of the Contemporary Catholic and Orthodox Theologians.
PhD
Dissertation, Fribourg, Université de
Fribourg, Institut d’études
oecuméniques, 2004 (available on the Internet: http://ethesis.unifr.ch/theses/index.php#Theologie;
last visited 10/05/08 ). For
further special literature on Afanasiev, consult the bibliographies of
Nichols
and Aryankalayil (pp. 284 and 501–502 respectively). Besides,
a useful resource
on Afanasiev is a web site maintained by Deacon Andrei Platonov: http://www.golubinski.ru/academia/afanasieffnew.htm
(last visited 10/05/2008). Also, Afanasiev deserved an anonymous (?!)
entry in the recent Russian Pravoslavnaia
Entsiklopediia (Orthodox Encyclopedia), vol. 4, 77 and 78.

[10] John Zizioulas, Eucharist,
Bishop, Church: The Unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist
and the Bishop During the First Three Centuries. Translated
By Elizabeth
Theokritoff. Brookline, MA:
Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001; and Zizioulas, Being
as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church. Crestwood, NY:
St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997.

[25] I am familiar with the Russian translation of
Zizioulas’ essay: Metropolitan John of Pergamos,
“Pomestnaia tserkov’ s tochki
zreniia evkharistii (pravoslavnyi vzgliad) (The local church from the
point of
view of the Eucharist: An Orthodox perspective),” Pravoslavnaja obshchina 16–18
(1993). Available for me on the
Internet: http://www.sfi.ru/ar.asp?rubr_id=367&art_id=2741
(last visited 10.05.08). The French original is to be found in Vestnik russkogo zapadno-evropeiskogo
patriarshiego ekzarkhata 97-100 (1978), 35-48.

[32] Afanasiev, Tserkov’
Dukha Sviatogo, 281; Church of the
Holy Spirit, 255. Similar formulas occur many times in
Afanasiev. For
example, cf. Trapeza gospodnia, ch.
1, II, 4 (the last passage of the chapter).

[48] For some more instances of the criticism of
Afanasiev,
one can consult Michael Plekon, “Always Everyone and Always
Together: The Eucharistic
Ecclesiology of Nicholas Afanasiev’s The
Lord Supper Revisited,” St
Vladimir’s
Theological Quarterly 41.2-3 (1997), 141–173.